


String Lights Lit Nights

by matterofseconds



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24941299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matterofseconds/pseuds/matterofseconds
Summary: Zoe hates weddings. It's corny, cheesy, predictable. But not Madison showing up. One-shot AU.
Relationships: Zoe Benson/Madison Montgomery
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	String Lights Lit Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [therestisconfetti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisconfetti/gifts).



> This story was written as a submission to a story prompt contest I entered a while ago. I realized I had some similarities to @therestisconfetti's wonderful Zadison Little Italy AU, so pls check that one out as well!

You hate weddings.

Especially being invited to the ones of your former high school classmates. Ugh.

It’s that point in your life when everyone your age is getting on track with the rest of their lives. People are getting married, some having kids, even; buying houses, cars. And you reject the societal norm of having a timeline to follow, but there’s still a lingering bad taste in your mouth when another invitation for a wedding comes in the mail, or worse, a baby shower.

And you tell yourself that you’re not doing so bad, either. Sure, your peers are successful business owners, or established engineers, and you’re just a measly little grad student at 27 - but no, you tell yourself that your life is just as important as everyone else’s because you’re going at your own pace and it’s okay that everyone’s at various points in their lives.

You battled with yourself for a bit before deciding to come or not.

Kyle made you, eventually. He’s the kind of guy that had friends in every clique, and still stayed popular after high school. Sometimes you wonder how the two of you are best friends - he’s more social and outgoing than you’d ever wish to be. He whined and ranted on, something about “reconnecting with old friends”, blah blah. You gave in, of course, because Kyle _always_ wins.

It’s a pretty wedding, not too glamorous but fancy enough. The ceremony was set on a golf course - because it’s May and the grass and flowers and trees are lovely enough to make everything look immaculate. The reception was even better, in your opinion - string-lit light bulbs that hung over the trees and the simple arches, even a live band that didn’t suck.

You pour yourself another glass of champagne, scanning through the crowd. You’re not necessarily anti-social, per se, but you do prefer to stand back and observe people. Some are dancing, drinking, laughing. It’s nice, seeing people genuinely enjoying themselves and getting with old friends. There’s an odd sense of nostalgia, even if you were never close with most of them.

Especially when you see Kyle trying to chug down an entire keg, an old weekend habit of his when you were sixteen.

You continue to let your eyes wander, and a figure stops you in your tracks.

She’s right there, twenty feet away and god-forsakenly perfect in that purple dress. Her hair’s curled the same way it was on that senior prom night that you hazily remember - glossy and effortless, just long enough. You don’t even need to stand in front of her to know that the satin glow off her lilac gown will match her hazel eyes like a match made in heaven.

There’s an uneasiness in your throat as you look at her - half of you doesn’t want her to find you creepily staring, the other half hoping that she’d look your way so she’d come talk to you.

She’s in conversation with someone else - Seth from the football team, you think - and your breath hitches as she catches your eyes and undoubtedly realizes that it’s you. She pauses and the two of you are locked in a gaze you didn’t ask for, but you kind of did, too.

As predicted, she excuses herself and begins to make her way to you. Oh, god, _oh, god_.

You blink, and suddenly she’s standing in front of you now, hazel orbs glistening like the stars.

Her eyes are lined in black eyeliner, lashes curled in a way that amplifies how intense the green in her pupils are. Her makeup wasn’t overdone - not that she ever needed it in the first place - light blush over her high cheekbones, perfectly lined lips, soft glittery pink eyeshadow.

Five-foot-two of perfection, if perfection were ever to exist.

“You look good.”

There it was. You realize that you’ve forgotten the way her voice sounds, the way it husks and rings and rumbles all at once, and you feel like you’re seventeen all over again. There’s a reverb in the pit of your stomach, where her last syllable echoes on, and you’re not sure if it’ll ever go away.

It takes a while, but you succeed in finding your way back to reality.

“You, too,” You manage to say thickly.

“I like your dress.” She offers.

You did too. It was a simple V-cut navy one-piece, tightly hugging at your hips and showing your legs well enough. You feel good in it, confident even. You didn’t want to tell her that you only got this dress because the colour reminded you of her old soccer uniform, and made you think about all those times when she’d climb into your car after practice, hair tied back and slightly sweaty, almost perfect.

“You still driving the old BMW?”

It’s like she’s a fucking mind reader.

“Yeah, the station wagon,” You say. “You remembered.”

She chuckles in a chorus of chiming bells. “Of course I do, that’s where we first kissed.”

You can feel the blood flooding to your ears; you weren’t expecting her to bring up your relationship. Granted, it’d been almost ten years already, but you hadn’t had a relationship like that ever since. She was your first real girlfriend, your first kiss, your first everything. She held your hand as you came out to your parents, and took you to the bleachers when you were too scared to kiss in public. To say that she was all that scripted your adolescence would be an understatement. Sure, you met some people in college, and girlfriends off dating apps, but no one ever quite felt the same as her. Even your sometimes overbearing mother - would try to subtly hint at how much she missed her, too.

And it wasn’t a bad breakup or anything. It was just two people growing apart. It was great in high school, but the move to college was much harder than you’d think it would’ve been. Hectic schedules and mounting piles of work just made it almost impossible to see each other, much less maintain a relationship. It was two young people at important stages of their lives, who had to do some learning and growing, apart.

You tell yourself you’re doing fine. And you are, really. You have an intern job at a good company, and you’re about to finish your post-grad degree. Everything’s on track, but it’s these goddamn wedding invitations that make you feel so fucking lonely sometimes, because you know you’d never find someone that makes you feel the same way she did again.

“...where you’d be.”

“Sorry, what?” You don’t realize how far back in your thoughts you’d gone.

“I said I’m glad I found you here. Kyle said he didn’t know if you’d come.”

“You still talk to Kyle?” You’re surprised.

“Yeah, we ran into each other when he was in town for a business meeting. We caught up, stayed in touch.”

You like the way that she still had to look up to you when you talked - the height difference was always something you found comforting.

“Can you believe Coco would be the one getting married? Coco, the girl who had a different boyfriend every week?”

“She’s a big girl now.” You smile.

“Hmm. You still live in the city?”

“Yeah.” Small talk was never your strong suit, but it’s even weirder to catch up with someone you once knew so well.

It’s a bit awkward - the two of you haven’t spoken in years, but you can’t ignore that voice in the pit of your stomach that’s telling you she’s here - she’s _really_ here.

She laughs softly, the kind of sound that warms you up and freezes you to your core at the same time. “Never knew Coco was one for outdoor string lights.” She caresses a lightbulb hanging from a tree, slowly turning it with her fingertips. “They’re like fireflies. Cute.”

“Just like prom.” You find yourself saying.

“You remember.” She turns to meet your gaze, hazel eyes holding you to the ground. “I would’ve thought you didn’t remember anything from that night.”

“I remember some.” You tried casually, attempting to hide the embarrassment. You had let your stupid friends talk you into taking unholy amounts of oxy and rum early in the night, causing a premature blackout that ended senior prom for you by 8pm. Most of that night still comes as a fuzz, but there are things you remember - her hair, her dress, her carrying you to her car.

And the lights, of course. Because she’d said the same thing about them that night, too.

“God, that was a night.”

“Definitely an experience.” You agreed. “I’m sorry I ruined it for you.”

“No harm done.” It was words like these that made you feel like an asshole.

There are pictures, of course, the hundreds of photos your mother took as she forced the two of you to pose by the staircase and in the back garden. And the other hundreds of photos you took when she showed up at your house with a rented Maserati (your dream car) after she insisted that limos were out of style already.

But you know that prom was more about the dresses, and the cars.

And she knew that, too.

The two of you had only danced to a couple of pop songs before you had to be evacuated from the premises. The first slow dance song had only begun to play its first few chords as you were limping out of the venue.

“Oh, it’s that song.” She says, suddenly.

You perk your ears and listen carefully. It’s the same song they played all those years ago, the song you never got to dance to. You wonder if God, or fate, or whatever, has anything to do with it.

She closes her eyes and hums gently along. She starts to sway, and you manage to catch the glass in her hand before the champagne spilled over.

“Watch it there, Baby.”

She laughs, embarrassed.

“I loved that movie.”

“I know.”

You set the glass down at the nearest table, an odd tingling in your fingertips.

“Just say it,” you silently remind yourself. You know you’d regret it if you didn’t.

You count a couple heartbeats - four, to be exact; there’s that heat in your throat.

Good.

You turn to find her still there, still angelic, still everything that you dreamed of when you were seventeen.

“Do you want to dance with me?”

The corners of her lips lift, so effortlessly. The perfectly-sculpted face rises into a smile, and you feel like every Christmas light in the world has just lit up.

She says, ever so quietly, barely audible above the music. “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
